Abu Qatada

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am keen, if at all possible, to accommodate all remaining colleagues, but to do so I require brevity, which exercise will be led by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone).

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am sure the residents of the Kettering constituency would want me to congratulate the Home Secretary on her tremendous efforts to deport this wretched man. Reassuringly, she said she would look at how France, Italy and other countries do this sort of thing rather faster. Who is going to lead that review, and when will they report?

[Mrs May]

I will come back to my hon. Friend with more details on that in due course, if I may. I have already initiated some work on this within the Home Office, and we will be looking at the matter as soon as we can. If we were to require legislative changes, we would have to look at the legislative timetable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last but never least, Mr Philip Hollobone.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Major serious and organised crime knows no geographical boundaries, so will my right hon. Friend congratulate the five east midlands police forces on coming together and collaborating in order to tackle this menace more effectively and to save the taxpayer £26 million over the next four years?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those five east midlands police forces—I have visited them and spoken to them about this—are doing excellent collaborative work, not only on the tasks that they can undertake to reduce costs, but on improving their ability to fight crime.

UK Border Agency

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Absolutely, and I have already answered the points about the Immigration Minister’s comments. The hon. Lady needs to recognise that secure identity checks were suspended before January/February 2011, that they were suspended until May, and sadly, despite the fact that I explicitly said that they should not be suspended in May, they remained suspended. That was without ministerial authorisation. It is high time that she and her right hon. and hon. Friends recognised what was happening without ministerial authorisation.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The establishment of a new operational command for the UK Border Force and the appointment of its interim head sound like positive and constructive steps forward, but they come just five months before the London Olympics. Will the Home Secretary ensure that the interim head has all the resources he needs to cope with the increased number of visitors that this country can expect?

[Mrs May]

I can assure my hon. Friend that the UK Border Force has already undertaken a great deal of work within the UKBA, and will continue to undertake it, to ensure that we can accommodate people coming to London and other parts of the country for the Olympics and Paralympics. We are doing a great deal of work, including, crucially, with the airport operators.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In the town of Kettering, from 2010 to 2011 overall crime has fallen by 4%, robbery by 11%, theft from motor vehicles by 20% and residential burglaries by 40%. Will the Home Secretary join me in welcoming those figures?

[Mrs May]

I do indeed welcome those figures, and I thank my hon. Friend for bringing them to the attention of the House. I also commend the local police and other local agencies that have been involved in ensuring that such a fall in crime can take place in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

Firearms Residue Testing (Criminal Cases)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Lynne Featherstone]

I am more than happy to write to my hon. Friend following our search; I do not know about Hertfordshire police’s search. We will do whatever we can. I cannot go ahead of that, before we understand whether we have it, but I am happy to write to my hon. Friend in that regard. I congratulate him again on securing this debate and on bringing such an important issue to Parliament.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I thank both hon. Members for taking part in that interesting debate; I think that Mr Collins’s constituent has been well served today. I wish both participants a happy Christmas.

Foreign National Offenders

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I speak to the Justice Secretary in the Scottish Government on a regular basis about various issues, because of the devolved powers in this area. I am afraid I do not have the exact figure that the hon. Lady asks for to hand, but I will write to her with it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Minister name and shame the three countries from which most of the foreign nationals in question come and that are being the most awkward in facilitating their return to secure detention in their own countries?

[Damian Green]

Two were named in the weekend press, but they were not, in fact, the most awkward. Awkwardness is difficult to define. The two countries named were Jamaica and Nigeria, whose nationals account for most such prisoners. However, I should pay tribute to both countries’ Governments, who are considerably more co-operative now than they were. I visited Nigeria recently, where I visited a prison, part of which had been built by the British taxpayer specifically to make it easier for us to return Nigerian national prisoners to Nigeria. That is the kind of practical action we are taking.

Intelligence and Security Committee

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution to the work of the Committee. He and I visited GCHQ and saw at first hand the increasing threat from cyber that this country faces from a number of sources. I therefore very much endorse his comments.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am enjoying my right hon. and learned Friend’s speech immensely. In his Committee’s report, in recommendations K and E, the Committee identifies a wider technological problem facing our security services. In recommendation E the Committee says:

“We are concerned about GCHQ’s inability to retain a suitable cadre of internet specialists to respond to the threat”,

and in recommendation K it states:

“The Committee recognises that the Security Service needs IT specialists in order to deliver its major technology projects. However, spending on consultants and contractors continues to increase at a significant rate.”

Does my right hon. and learned Friend share my concern that although his Committee has identified this as a problem, the Government are not yet up to speed in providing the answer that his Committee seeks?

Border Control Scheme

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

For the fourth time, I will tell Opposition Members—I wish their Whips could have thought of more than one question for them to read out—that every private flight is checked against the warnings index before it arrives. That is what makes it safe.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents want to know the definition of private flights, which of the main airports they fly to, and what proportion of total passenger numbers is made up of such flights.

[Damian Green]

The definition is a flight that is not a scheduled flight. The number of airports that they fly into is in the hundreds, because frankly anyone who puts up a windsock in a field can have a private airport, but the number regularly used for private flights is between 100 and 150. The biggest usage of private flights is into our biggest airports, because most of them tend to be business flights.

UK Border Force

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I think I have explained in my statement and in answers to questions exactly what happened.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In her statement, my right hon. Friend said that border officials were free to use their professional judgment to check the biometric chip of EEA passengers. Given that biometrics are meant to speed things up and provide greater security, I and my constituents would want every passport holder with a biometric chip to have their passport checked.

[Mrs May]

Perhaps I should repeat what I said about the biometric chip. The biometric chip holds within it a second photograph. That is all it holds within it. The decision was taken under the pilot to allow discretion to be operated in relation to EEA nationals and the opening of the biometric chip on a risk-based approach. I am sure my hon. Friend would want a border force that ensures it is targeting those who place most at risk individuals living in the United Kingdom.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The hon. Lady will know that later this afternoon my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will make a statement covering the issues that she is interested in. The reductions in staffing are not affecting the front line because we are improving the front line by, for instance, having airline liaison officers overseas. Over the past few years, that has prevented 60,000 people whom we did not want to travel from travelling in the first place. The use of facial recognition technology and e-gates also makes our borders more secure.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Minister assure the House that the effectiveness of our front-line border controls will not be undermined by pressure to reduce queues at airports?

[Damian Green]

As I have just explained to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), it is important to have intelligent border controls, to use technology and to put the right people in the right places so that we can keep our borders secure. Those are elements of this Government’s transformation of the UKBA to sort out the shambles that we inherited.